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Information about Bison

This is an article about an animal. For other uses, see Bison (disambiguation).
Bison
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Bison bison or buffalo

Bison bison or buffalo
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Chordata
Class:Mammalia
Order:Artiodactyla
Family:Bovidae
Subfamily:Bovinae
Genus:Bison
Hamilton Smith, 1827
Species


†B. antiquus
B. bison
B. bonasus
†B. latifrons
†B. occidentalis
†B. priscus
Bison is a taxonomic group containing six species of large even-toed ungulates within the subfamily Bovinae. Only two of these species still exist: the American Bison (B. bison) and the European Bison, or wisent (B. bonasus).

In American Western culture, the bison is commonly referred to as "buffalo"; however, this is a misnomer. Though both bison and buffalo belong to the same family, Bovidae, the term 'buffalo' properly applies only to the Asian Water Buffalo and African Buffalo. The gaur, a large, thick-coated ox found in Asia, is also known as the Indian Bison, although it is in the genus Bos and thus not a true bison.

The American and European bison are the largest terrestrial mammals in North America and Europe. Like their cattle relatives, bison are nomadic grazers and travel in herds, except for the non-dominant bulls, which travel alone or in small groups during most of the year. American bison are known for living in the Great Plains. Both species were hunted close to extinction during the 19th and 20th centuries but have since rebounded, although the European bison is still endangered.

Unlike the Asian Water Buffalo, the bison has never really been domesticated, although it does appear on farms occasionally. It is raised now mostly on large ranches in the United States and Canada for meat. Wild herds are found in Yellowstone, Utah's Antelope Island, South Dakota's Custer State Park, Alaska, and northern central Canada (see Wood Bison).

Bison live to be about 20 years old and are born without their trademark "hump" or horns. With the development of their horns, they become mature at two to three years of age, although the males continue to grow slowly to about age seven. Adult bulls express a high degree of dominance during mating season.

On March 16, 2007, 15 American bison were re-introduced to Colorado to roam where they did over a century ago. A herd of 15 bison has been established in the 17,000-acre (69 km²) Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, a former chemical weapons manufacturing site.

On September 21, 2007, the research co-authored by biologist Dennis Hedgecock of the University of Southern California and Texas A&M University (journal Animal Genetics) found per DNA analysis that the Catalina wild American Bison of Santa Catalina Island, California is not pure bred, having a little bit of cow in them (45% have a domestic cow as an ancestor).[1]

See also

Gallery


Herd of bison grazing in Elk Island National Park, Alberta, Canada.

Bison feeding - Alberta.


External links

References

Bison may mean:
  • Bison, a large ungulate, sometimes called buffalo
  • Computing
* GNU bison, a general-purpose parser generator that converts an annotated context-free grammar into an LALR or GLR parser for that grammar
  • Places

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Scientific classification or biological classification is a method by which biologists group and categorize species of organisms. Scientific classification also can be called scientific taxonomy, but should be distinguished from folk taxonomy, which lacks scientific basis.
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Chordata
Bateson, 1885

Typical Classes

See below

Chordates (phylum Chordata) are a group of animals that includes the vertebrates, together with several closely related invertebrates.
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Mammalia
Linnaeus, 1758

Subclasses & Infraclasses
  • Subclass †Allotheria*
  • Subclass Prototheria
  • Subclass Theria

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Artiodactyla*
Owen, 1848

Families

Antilocapridae
Bovidae
Camelidae
Cervidae
Giraffidae
Hippopotamidae
Moschidae
Suidae
Tayassuidae
Tragulidae
Leptochoeridae †
Dichobunidae †
Cebochoeridae †
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Bovidae
Gray, 1821

Subfamilies

Bovinae
Cephalophinae
Hippotraginae
Antilopinae
Caprinae
Reduncinae
Aepycerotinae
Peleinae
Alcelaphinae
Panthalopinae

A bovid
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Bovinae
Gray, 1821

Tribes

Bovini
Boselaphini
Strepsicerotini
The biological subfamily Bovinae (or bovines) includes a diverse group of about 24 species of medium-sized to large ungulates, including domestic cattle, Bison, the Water
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For other persons of the same name, see Charles Smith.


Charles Hamilton Smith (December 26, 1776, East Flanders, Belgium –September 21, 1859, Plymouth) was an English artist, naturalist, antiquary, illustrator, soldier and spy.
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species is one of the basic units of biological classification. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.
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B. antiquus

Binomial name
Bison antiquus
Leidy, 1852

The Ancient Bison, Bison antiquus
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B. bison

Binomial name
Bison bison
(Linnaeus, 1758)

Subspecies

B. b. athabascae
B. b.
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B. bonasus

Binomial name
Bison bonasus
(Linnaeus, 1758)

The Wisent or European Bison (Bison bonasus) (IPA:
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Bison latifrons is an extinct species of bison that lived in North America during the Pleistocene. Also known as the Giant Bison, it reached a shoulder height of 8.5 feet, and had horns that spanned over 2 meters in length.

References

  • At Paleocraft.

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Bison occidentalis is an extinct species of bison that lived in North America during the Pleistocene. It was probably born of the Bison priscus. B. occidentalis was smaller and smaller horned than the steppe bison.
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B. priscus

Binomial name
Bison priscus
Bojanus, 1827

The Steppe Wisent (Bison priscus
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Artiodactyla*
Owen, 1848

Families

Antilocapridae
Bovidae
Camelidae
Cervidae
Giraffidae
Hippopotamidae
Moschidae
Suidae
Tayassuidae
Tragulidae
Leptochoeridae †
Dichobunidae †
Cebochoeridae †
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Bovinae
Gray, 1821

Tribes

Bovini
Boselaphini
Strepsicerotini
The biological subfamily Bovinae (or bovines) includes a diverse group of about 24 species of medium-sized to large ungulates, including domestic cattle, Bison, the Water
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B. bison

Binomial name
Bison bison
(Linnaeus, 1758)

Subspecies

B. b. athabascae
B. b.
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B. bonasus

Binomial name
Bison bonasus
(Linnaeus, 1758)

The Wisent or European Bison (Bison bonasus) (IPA:
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Western is a fiction genre seen in film, television, radio, literature, painting and other visual arts. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the later half of the 19th century in what became the Western United States (known as the American Old West or Wild
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B. bubalis

Binomial name
Bubalus bubalis
(Linnaeus, 1758)

The abundant Domestic Asian Water buffalo
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Syncerus
Hodgson, 1847

Binomial name
Syncerus caffer
(Sparrman, 1779)

Subspecies

S. c. caffer
S. c. nanus
S. c. brachyceros
''S. c.
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Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area (or 29.4% of its land area) and, with almost 4 billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's current human population.
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BOS may refer to:
  • Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, IATA Airport Code BOS.
  • South Station, Amtrak station code BOS and MBTA rail terminus.
  • bos, the ISO 639 alpha-3 code for the Bosnian language.

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Mammalia
Linnaeus, 1758

Subclasses & Infraclasses
  • Subclass †Allotheria*
  • Subclass Prototheria
  • Subclass Theria

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North America is a continent [1] in the Earth's northern hemisphere and (chiefly) western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the south and west
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Europe is one of the seven traditional continents of the Earth. Physically and geologically, Europe is the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, west of Asia. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Sea,
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If you are prevented from editing this page, and you wish to make a change, please discuss changes on the talk page, request unprotection, log in, or .
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This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia.org - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the wikipedia encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.
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